The July 1 ban shut down a variety of gambling establishments, from flashy casinos adorned with lavish neon lights to dingy casinos with only a handful of slot machines.
'I feel terrible. ' says Yuri Boyev, general director of Metelitsa, an upscale casino where billionaires rolled the dice and Russian gas giant Gazprom held a lavish Christmas party.
Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, came up with the idea in 2006, when he was president, after the Interior Ministry linked several Moscow gambling operations to Georgian organized crime.
The Kremlin plans to limit gambling to Las Vegas-style gaming zones in four rarely visited areas that need investment, including near the border with North Korea, but nothing has been built and critics say the zones will fail.
Gaming zones have known about the closure date for at least a year, but few thought the government would follow through.
The industry says the ban will cost at least 300,000 jobs, but Moscow officials say it is only 11,500 nationwide.
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Moscow Deputy Mayor Sergei Baidakov, who saw the men dismantling poker tables and laying roulette wheels on the floor, said the state is prepared to block any grand plan to move gambling underground.
'We are confident we have the situation under control,' he said.
He said the ban is meant to protect the health of society. Many critics of the gambling industry say it has to do with poor relations between Russia and Georgia. Georgians are believed to run many of Russia's gambling establishments.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, city police have provided security in case of protests by disgruntled former employees at popular gambling halls that now run wild in various Russian cities.
According to Itar-Tass news agency, a hotline was set up Wednesday to report those suspected of operating illegal gambling.
Moscow has about 550 gambling establishments, 30 of which are casinos in prime locations.
Midnight on Novy Arbat Street, the center of the gambling scene, fell silent as the flashing lights and loud music were turned off for the first time in more than a decade.
Elena, a slot machine operator who has worked in the gaming industry for five years, said, "I'm upset, but I'll take some time off and reassess my job situation in August."
Gaming brings in $7 billion in revenue and pays $1 billion in taxes each year.
Alternative development zones in southern Krasnodar, the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the Altai region of Eastern Siberia, and the Far East require up to $40 billion in investment but have not yet been built.
The zones have no roads, water, or electricity." Says Boyev, director of the casino. 'We complied with the law by closing it down, but the government didn't because the zone wasn't ready yet.
In Russia, where unemployment is at an eight-year high, the government's guarantee of jobs in restaurants and shopping centers to replace casinos has raised eyebrows in the industry.
But some gambling addicts thought the ban might save them.
"This could be a good thing. I have a family and I come here every day and lose all my money. I'm not going to be able to afford it," said a 40-year-old Muscovite who lives near the glitzy best-online-casino-reviews.com in the city center.
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